Thursday, February 10, 2011
Via JMG: UPDATE: Rep. Christopher Lee (R) Resigns After Craigslist Adultery Scandal
UPDATE: GOP Rep. Chistopher Lee (NY) resigned tonight "effectively immediately" in the light of the scandal detailed below. Lee sent Fox News a short statement announcing his resignation and expressing regret "for the embarrassment caused to my wife and family."
Gawker has posted the Craigslist ad of married GOP Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY), who has allegedly been using the site's "Women Seeking Men" section to seek out adulterous hook-ups in the Washington DC area. The gossip site has posted screen shots of numerous emails purportedly exchanged between Lee and a woman he angered by lying about his marital status.Yesterday, we reached out to Rep. Lee, whose support for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and vote to reject federal abortion funding suggests a certain comfort with publicly scrutinizing others' sex lives. A spokesman for the Congressman confirmed that the email address belonged to Lee, and that he had deleted his Facebook account because our initial inquiry had him fretting about "privacy." (A screenshot of his account before it vanished is at right.)As noted above, Lee was among the U.S. House members who voted to retain DADT. His position on other LGBT rights such as same-sex marriage appears to be unknown at the moment.
So did the married Republican prowl Craiglist looking for hook ups? After first telling us that he couldn't comment until we forwarded every single email in question, a request we refused—shouldn't Lee know if he's corresponded with women on Craigslist?—Lee's spokesman eventually announced that the Congressman believed he'd been hacked, and provided an email he claims Lee sent to his staff about the security breach on January 21.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Via HRC: U.S. pastors are exporting bigotry to Uganda, with brutal results.
Dear Daniel,
 Frank Mugisha |
I've heard some Ugandans falsely cite a "study" that one in four homosexual men have sex with children. This view is no accident. It's pure propaganda straight from the most extreme parts of the American right wing.
Is it any wonder that we are beaten, and attacked, and raped? Is it shocking that our own government sanctions cruelty and murder? With such hate flooding in from overseas, is it any surprise that gay Ugandans who dare to speak up – like my friend David Kato – have lost their lives?
I have seen the ugly extremism of a few anti-gay Americans, but I have also witnessed kindness and courage from many more. Hundreds joined me this week in vigils for the Ugandan dead. And my friends at the Human Rights Campaign tell me that since they sent the message below more than 36,000 of you have signed a petition calling on radical American pastors to stop exporting hate abroad. I cannot tell you how much I thank you.
If you haven't signed the petition yet, I hope you will do so now. To all those who have raised their voice already, I hope you will continue to fight by passing on the message below to your friends and family. Thousands of Ugandans are counting on you.
We simply want our neighbors to understand that gay and lesbian Ugandans deserve dignity and respect. My organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda, has fought the "kill the gays" bill and will continue to advocate for the freedom to be who we are. But we need your help to stop American extremists who are making our struggle so much harder.
Thank you for speaking up.
- Frank Mugisha
 | |
| Dear Daniel,
U.S. pastors are exporting bigotry to Uganda, with brutal results. This is an issue close to my heart, because I've spent over a decade working for equality as a lay leader in my own church, and now, as acting director of HRC's Religion and Faith program – which helps religious leaders of all stripes speak out for equality and fight back when hatred is promoted in the name of religion. On Thursday, that perversion of faith cost Ugandan gay rights advocate David Kato his life. He was bludgeoned to death in his home after his name was among those listed in an anti-gay magazine, under the headline "Hang them!" Since at least 2009, radical U.S. Christian missionaries have added anti-gay conferences and workshops in Uganda to their anti-gay efforts in the U.S. – and now they're beginning to ordain ministers and build churches across East Africa focused almost entirely on preaching against homosexuality. These American extremists didn't call for David's death. But they created a climate of hate that breeds violence – and they must stop and acknowledge they were wrong. We'll deliver your signature to three men who have gone out of their way to promote hatred:
They have been stirring up hostility in a country where homosexuality is already illegal, violent attacks are common, rape is used to 'cure' people of their sexual orientation – and a shocking law has been proposed that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment or even death. And they're in lockstep with some of the largest and wealthiest right-wing groups in the U.S. When the U.S. Congress considered a resolution denouncing the grotesque Ugandan death-penalty-for-gays bill, the extreme-right Family Research Council – now classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – spent $25,000 lobbying to stop the resolution from passing. Religion should never be used to spread hate. These men do not speak for me or the millions of diverse religious people who support equality not in spite of our faith, but because of it. That's what our Religion and Faith program is all about: helping people of faith from all different traditions speak out so we can reclaim the core religious values we hold dear in America. At the heart of every religious tradition is love of humanity and love of creator – not hatred for our neighbors. Creating a climate of hate runs contrary to the very idea of faith – but that's exactly what the right wing in America is doing. Whether or not we're people of faith, we cannot stay silent or stand idly by while a radical minority pushes a hateful agenda in God's name. Please stand with us and speak out today. Sincerely, Sharon Groves Religion and Faith Program  This link is specific to you, so please take action before you forward to your friends. Having trouble clicking on the links above? Simply copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar to reach the action page: https://secure3.convio.net/ | |
| © 2011 The Human Rights Campaign. All rights reserved. Human Rights Campaign | http://www.hrc.org/ 1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-3278 Phone: 202/628-4160 TTY: 202/216-1572 Fax: 202/347-5323 |
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
7-Year-old Marriage Equality Advocate
In an effort to teach a 7-year-old boy named Malcolm the importance of improving the world around him, he was given $140 to donate to the charity of his choice.
After hearing a story on the radio about the mistreatment of gays and lesbians, he selected two charities — the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
In a letter to the center, Malcolm wrote, “I am sending you this money because I don’t think it’s fair that Gay people are not treated equally.”
The donation also included a note from Malcolm’s mother, who challenged the center to raise $27,000 in her son’s name. Center officials have launched a campaign to do just that, and they plan to send confirmation that the goal has been reached along with a “big thank you note.”
Click here for more information on donating.
Via JMG: Iowa House Gets Bill Allowing Broad Discrimination Against Married Gays
Folks, this one takes the cake. It would be legal for an Iowa business owner who cites religious beliefs to refuse to provide jobs, housing, goods or services to people involved in a marriage that violates his or her religious convictions, according to a bill an Iowa House subcommittee will consider on Wednesday. House Study Bill 50, called the Religious Conscience Protection Act, would allow a person, business or organization such as a charity or fraternal group to deny services without fear of facing a civil claim or lawsuit if they think doing so would validate or recognize same-sex relationships. The same-sex exclusion is by itself constitutionally troubling, several legal scholars and civil rights activists said. However, the bill is so broad that it would legalize a wide spectrum of other discriminatory acts, they said. They raised questions about whether services could be denied if, say, a Christian were married to a Jew or if a woman who is 60 married a man who is half her age and the couple could not procreate.Iowa's GOP House Speaker says the bill "has a shot" of passing. Our hero in the state Senate, Mike Gronstal, will likely block the bill from consideration there.
JMG Quote Of The Day - Ted Haggard
"The word marriage is a big deal to people of faith. We’ve made it sacred. That’s why I believe that churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples should have total freedom to have whatever types of unions they believe as godly. But I think that we as a democratic society, as a constitutional republic — if we don’t respect individual civil liberties, then we’re making a horrific mistake. The church is in the early stages of another ‘the earth is flat’ crisis. I say to all religious people that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry on the subject. Or we’re going to be embarrassed in another 10 or 20 years." - Ted Haggard, in this week's Advocate cover story.Monday, February 7, 2011
Via JMG: Billie Ray Martin - Sweet Suburban Disco
The fantastic Billie Ray Martin is back with Sweet Suburban Disco, a lovely electro number reminiscent of her stone late 80s club classics with Electribe 101 (Talking With Myself, Tell Me When The Fever Ended) and her 1995 global solo smash, Your Loving Arms. The new track and its remixes drop on iTunes on February 28th. (The remix by Erasure's Vince Clark is especially tasty.) Courtesy of Billie's U.S. promoters, here's a JMG sneak of the radio edit.
Sweet Suburban Disco - radio edit by billie ray martin
Joe says,
RELATED: Back in '95, I somehow saw Billie perform Your Loving Arms three nights in a row at clubs in three different cities: South Beach's Club 1235/Paragon/Level, some forgotten place in West Palm Beach, and at Fort Lauderdale's The Stud, which was the best leather disco that ever used to be a Red Lobster. I wasn't stalking her, I just went out a really, really lot in those days.
reposted from Joe
Via AmericaBlog: On Reagan's 'shameful abdication of leadership in the fight against AIDS'
Today would have been Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. All of official DC (The Villagers), GOPers and right-wingers in general are rewriting the history of Reagan's presidency. Check out Mike Stark's conversation with Limbaugh.
As America remembers the life of Ronald Reagan, it must never forget his shameful abdication of leadership in the fight against AIDS. History may ultimately judge his presidency by the thousands who have and will die of AIDS.Indifference lead to death. Remember the slogan: Silence = Death. It did.
Following discovery of the first cases in 1981, it soon became clear a national health crisis was developing. But President Reagan's response was "halting and ineffective," according to his biographer Lou Cannon. Those infected initially with this mysterious disease -- all gay men -- found themselves targeted with an unprecedented level of mean-spirited hostility.
A significant source of Reagan's support came from the newly identified religious right and the Moral Majority, a political-action group founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination. Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals." Reagan's communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is "nature's revenge on gay men."
With each passing month, death and suffering increased at a frightening rate. Scientists, researchers and health care professionals at every level expressed the need for funding. The response of the Reagan administration was indifference.
Michael Bedwell also reminds us of that major stain on Reagan's legacy. He pointed me to an article from the Washington Post on June 2, 1987 (also available at the Post's archives):
D.C. police wearing long yellow rubber gloves arrested 64 demonstrators after the group blocked traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to protest the Reagan administration's AIDS policies. The administration's policies were also the focus of protests at the Washington Hilton hotel, where more than 6,000 researchers have gathered for the Third International Conference on AIDS.Indifference and silence. Death. Quite a legacy.
Among those arrested was Leonard P. Matlovich, a former Air Force sergeant who was expelled from the service in 1975 after admitting his homosexuality. Matlovich, who recently learned he has AIDS, wore his old Air Force jacket decorated with a Purple Heart and Bronze Star and clutched a small American flag as police handcuffed him.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Via JMG: HomoQuotable - Larry Kramer
"It is remarkable that two of the so-called 'greatest presidents' have also allowed the greatest perpetrations and perpetuations of mass murder. Franklin D. Roosevelt was shamefully inept in dealing with 'the Jewish question,' (see my play The Normal Heart), most ironically since so many Jews were his most loyal supporters, the Jerry Zipkins of their day. No one really writes about this. Roosevelt is one of history’s great gods. Just as no one really writes about Reagan and 'the gay question.' These two major murderers so far have gotten away with helping to cause the two major holocausts of modern history. Just as Jews are asked to never forget their Holocaust, I implore all gay people never to forget our holocaust and who caused it and why."Ronald Reagan did not even say the word 'AIDS' out loud for the first seven years of his reign. Because of this, some 70 million people, so far, have become infected with HIV/AIDS. I wonder what it feels like to be the son and the wife of a man responsible for over 70 million people so far becoming infected with a virus that has killed over half of us so far. I wonder what it felt like while he was alive to ponder this. For surely he must have thought about it. How could he not? He has been called the consummate actor who came to believe all his lines. Does this not make his legacy even more grotesque? It should. Hitler knew what he was doing. How could Ronald Reagan not have known what he was doing? But of course, no one is writing about this. Reagan too is one of history's gods. So far he has gotten away with murder." - Larry Kramer in a 2004 article reposted today by the Advocate.
Via JMG: White House Press Conference, 1982
Laughter about dead queers. At the White House. It was five long horrifying and desperate years later before Reagan finally personally addressed the AIDS epidemic, when he came out against a public prevention campaign, saying, "Let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons?" By then, tens of thousands had died.(Press conference text via Daily Kos user Clark67)
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Via JMG: Tears And Rage
The post below this one reminds me of one of the very first I wrote for JMG. Originally posted here on June 8th, 2004.
Yesterday I watched Ronald Reagan's body being ceremoniously placed for viewing in the Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The honor guard, comprised of all military services, moved with stiff dignity while placing Reagan's flag-draped coffin on its pedestal. The Marine Corps band played Hail To The Chief then My Country 'Tis Of Thee.
Tiny Nancy Reagan was lead in, followed by her children. Other military and governmental dignitaries filed in and were seated behind the Reagan family. And as the service began, as the religious figure began his familiar droning, as the mourners held each other and dabbed their eyes...I found myself....weeping. But I wasn't weeping for Ronald Reagan. I wasn't weeping for Nancy or her kids.
I was weeping for my friends. Friends that died of AIDS during Reagan's presidency. Friends that never had the slightest chance of surviving their illness because Reagan refused to even speak the word AIDS until many years into the epidemic.
I wept for Barney. Barney the party-thrower, the generous host, the bon vivant. Barney, who could make a stranger feel comfortable in a room full of a hundred new people. Barney, who actually got me to climb up and dance on a nightclub's speakers with him. I wept for Barney who died choking from pneumocystis, in the middle of the night, alone.
I wept for Peyman. Peyman, the Iranian student left stranded in Florida when the Shah fell from power. Peyman, the fashion plate with his beautiful black hair and flashing brown eyes, who wore Parachute and WilliWear and always looked fabulous. Peyman, who taught me that Iranians were not Arabs and how to curse in Farsi. I wept for Peyman who died blind, paralyzed, shrieking and demented.
I wept for Nathan. Nathan, the shy Southern boy with the Star Trek obsession. Nathan, who finally afforded me an understanding of the infield fly rule. Nathan who had an adorable habit of taking a short jump in the air when something pleased him. I wept for Nathan, whose family refused receipt of his remains.
I thought about my little black address book with 'D' for 'deceased' next to so many names. I've had friends tell me it's macabre to keep using it. I don't care. This is all so fucking unfair. I should be sending those guys silly birthday cards about being middle-aged instead of wondering who has their ashes.
As Reagan's funeral proceeded, my tears to turned to anger and back to tears. This was so not fucking right! I wanted this man to suffer more! I wanted his mind fully engaged and aware of every diaper change. I wanted him to endure endless indignities and know the same fear and ostracism and neglect that my friends had. Knowing that his mind had escaped its physical prison, I felt cheated. My revenge was incomplete.
And then I felt shame for thinking that, even about Ronald Reagan.
For the first time that I can recall, yesterday I felt my absence of faith. It's hard to invoke the satisfying image of somebody burning in hell for eternity when you don't actually believe that hell exists.
I finally turned off the television. I thought viewing Reagan's funeral would bring to me a sense of finality. Instead, I was surprised to learn that I can still cry. I didn't think I could anymore. Not like that.
The True Legacy Of Ronald Reagan
Today Alex Pareene notes at Salon that Ronald Reagan was far more concerned about the potential of aliens attacking from outer space than he was about the AIDS pandemic, which he completely ignored. Reagan frequently spoke on the threat from little green men, an issue he brought up at the United Nations and one that he even discussed with Russian premier Mikhail Gorbachev.
If Ronald Reagan was a genuine UFO nutter or simply in thrall to a simplistic sci-fi plot makes no difference to me. But the fact remains that he spent a lot of time talking about spacemen. Spacemen killed, according to my estimates, no Americans, at all, during Reagan's presidency. Reagan never mentioned AIDS until he was directly questioned about it in his second term, and he never gave a public statement on the epidemic until 1987, when 20,000-30,000 people had already died from it. When it came up in press briefings, it was, at first, a subject of humorous cajoling. Later, the president was advised not to say that children couldn't catch AIDS from casual contact. Members of the Reagan inner circle attacked Surgeon General C. Everett Koop for encouraging sex education and condom use. The Centers for Disease Control was underfunded and there was never a comprehensive plan for dealing with the epidemic.How many of the people in the below clip might be alive today, had Ronald Reagan and his administration acted decisively in the early years of AIDS?
reposted from Joe
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